


Pangs

by celeste9



Category: Primeval
Genre: Established Relationship, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Toothache
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-24
Updated: 2014-11-24
Packaged: 2018-02-26 21:25:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,084
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2666864
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/celeste9/pseuds/celeste9
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ryan has a toothache, which makes him not the most pleasant person to be around at the moment.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pangs

**Author's Note:**

  * For [fififolle](https://archiveofourown.org/users/fififolle/gifts).



> Happy birthday to fififolle! Some Connor/Ryan for you, as per request. I hope you like what I did with it! For 'toothache' on my hc_bingo card. Thanks to clea2011 for the speedy beta.

Ryan was a man not unused to pain. He had survived broken bones, gunshots, knife wounds, and the general discomfort of SAS training and military life.

That wasn’t even mentioning the dinosaurs.

Suffice it to say, his threshold for pain was pretty high.

“Just fucking kill me,” Ryan muttered, pushing his dinner plate away from him.

“Sorry?” Connor said, blinking at him.

“Nothing. Just talking to myself.”

“Oh. Aren’t you hungry? You hardly touched your food.”

Truth be told, Ryan had been starving. It was only that the act of eating seemed beyond him at the moment. He wondered if he could survive on a liquid diet. He wondered how much Connor would side-eye him if he skipped dinner entirely and had a few beers instead.

It was this sodding tooth. It had started bothering him a while ago but he had ignored it. Apparently that hadn’t been the best plan because now it sometimes seemed like blowing his brains out would be a better option than coping with the discomfort.

Two more days until it was out, Ryan kept telling himself. Two more days.

But Connor had asked him a question. Right. “Not really, no, I suppose. Don’t worry about it.”

Connor was gnawing on his bottom lip. “Didn’t you like it? I know I’m not much of a cook, but I thought it turned out all right.” He dropped his gaze down to Ryan’s cheeseburger and then looked back up at Ryan’s face. “I could get you something else?”

“I said it’s fine,” Ryan snapped, harsher than he’d meant to, standing up and grabbing his plate to clear up. He watched Connor shrink back in his chair and felt like an arsehole.

“Okay,” Connor said. He wouldn’t look straight at Ryan anymore, pretending to be fully intent on his food, but Ryan could see the hurt Connor’s open, expressive face couldn’t conceal.

They didn’t talk much for the rest of the evening, Connor retreating to the sofa with his laptop while Ryan hid in the bedroom with a mystery novel. He’d figured out it was the best friend fifty pages in, which meant the book was sadly lacking as a distraction from the pain in his tooth. After a while he heard the tinny sound of fake gunshots, signalling that Connor had turned to video games.

Ryan was lying on his back with an arm flung over his face when he heard Connor creep in. The bed dipped.

“Ryan?” Connor whispered.

Ryan contemplated pretending to be asleep, but doubted his chances of success. “What?”

“Are you mad at me?”

The words made Ryan feel an uncomfortable pang in his chest. This wasn’t Connor’s fault, none of it. “No.”

“Really?” The mattress dipped again as Connor shifted closer. He put his hand on Ryan’s chest, dragging his fingers in slow patterns.

It had been... well, if Ryan couldn’t remember how long, that meant it had been far, far too long since they had slept together. Still. The thought of having to try right now made sex seem about as appealing as sitting through one of Lester’s budget discussions. He pushed Connor’s hand off of him.

Connor sat back, twisting his hands in his lap. “I’m sorry,” he said, face crumpling, and walked out of the bedroom.

A few minutes later Ryan heard the gunshots again.

He rolled onto his side and pulled open the drawer of the bedside table, dry swallowing a couple of ibuprofen from the bottle he kept there. Then he switched off the light. “You are a prat, Ryan,” he told himself, and wondered if his tooth would let him get any sleep tonight.

-

When Ryan walked out of the clinic two days later, half his face still numb from the local anesthetic, he found Connor waiting for him, hands shoved in his pockets.

“Ditzy told me you’d be here,” Connor said.

“I figured,” Ryan said. It felt weird to talk still and he hoped he was mostly understandable.

“How come...” Connor started, and then stopped. He looked at Ryan.

Ryan knew he had made a bit of a mess of things, and he could tell by the veiled hurt in Connor’s eyes that he had betrayed Connor’s trust by keeping this from him. He knew all that, but he really couldn’t do this now. “Hey. I promise we can talk about this, but do you mind if we do it when I can feel the right side of my face?”

Connor smiled a little, so Ryan knew things weren’t too terrible. “That sounds fair.”

-

They were sitting side by side on the sofa a few hours later when Connor said, “So. You had a tooth out.”

“Yeah. It was... It hurt.”

“That’s why you’ve been so grumpy lately?”

“I haven’t been grumpy,” Ryan insisted, but at the expression on Connor’s face, he relented. “All right. Maybe a bit.”

“A lot,” Connor insisted.

“A lot,” Ryan agreed.

“Why didn’t you just tell me? I could have helped, I would have helped you.”

Ryan breathed in and really considered what Connor had said. It was true. Connor would have helped, and he would have been nice about it, and cheerful. It would have made the whole thing less of an ordeal, no doubt. In all honesty Connor probably would have loved the chance to get to take care of Ryan.

And maybe that was it exactly.

“I’m not a very good patient,” Ryan said.

“No,” Connor said. The sarcastic tone was perfect. He’d been spending too much time around Lester.

“Shocking, I know,” Ryan said, and squeezed Connor’s knee. “I hate being injured, I hate the helpless feeling of it, and I hate having to rely on people. I... I haven’t always had someone like you, Connor, and I, well, I guess I didn’t want you to know. I mean, it was only a toothache. It shouldn’t have been a big deal.”

Connor had been listening attentively, his face sympathetic, but when he spoke he said, “You’re kind of stupid,” with a big grin on his face.

“Am I?”

“Yeah. You should have just said.”

Ryan could admit that Connor was probably right, but that didn’t mean he had to say so out loud.

Connor bumped their shoulders together. “Big tough soldier, eh?”

“That’s the idea.”

“Well, come on, then,” Connor said, standing up and outstretching his hand to Ryan. “Big tough soldiers who’ve just had teeth pulled like ice cream, don’t they?”

Ryan took Connor’s hand. “Yeah, they do.”

**_End_ **


End file.
